RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Drowning is the leading cause of death among children in rural Bangladesh. While survival swimming for children ages 6 years and above is recommended in low-income and middle-income countries, research into the long-term retention of survival swimming skills is absent. METHODS: The retention of four survival swimming skills, including swimming for 25 m, floating/treading for 30 s, reach rescue skills and throw rescue skills, was observed among those trained under the SwimSafe programme more than 10 years ago. Information about the practice of survival swimming skills among SwimSafe graduates and whether they recommended such lessons for others was also collected through surveys. A multistage sampling strategy was used. Descriptive statistics on the retention of survival swimming skills and other variables and ORs from logistic regression analysis were reported. RESULTS: A total of 3603 SwimSafe graduates were observed. The retention of swimming and floating/treading skills was 88.4% and 89.7%, respectively, and that of swimming and floating/treading skills combined was 84.2%. While 87.7% of the graduates retained reach rescue skills, the retention of throw rescue skills was lower (71.9%). Approximately 60.6% of the graduates retained all four survival swimming skills. The majority of the graduates (70.3%) rarely practised swimming following graduation. Overall, 61.7% of the graduates recommended other children to learn survival swimming skills. CONCLUSION: The majority of the SwimSafe graduates retained swimming and floating/treading skills for over 10 years despite minimal practice. Retention of throw rescue skills was lower. Therefore, refresher training and awareness campaigns focused on survival swimming skills are recommended.
RESUMEN
INTRODUCTION: In Bangladesh, injury is one of the leading causes of death and morbidity in children. All children under 5 years of age are at high risk for drowning though the risks are highest when children first learn to walk and crawl while they do not understand the danger of water. The Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) in collaboration with Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit (JH-IIRU) has been implementing two drowning prevention interventions, providing playpens and community day care centres (anchal), or both in three rural sub-districts of Bangladesh under Saving of Lives from Drowning (SoLiD) project in Bangladesh. In CIPRB intervention areas, wooden playpens were distributed among the children nine months to three years at household (HH) level. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore and understand the acceptability and perceptions of parents towards playpen and its relevance for drowning and injury related mortality and morbidity prevention. METHODS: Anchal mothers ('anchal maa' in Bangla) distributed 30,553 playpens and collected compliance information at the HH level using a structured questionnaire. 1600 trained anchal maas collected data via face to face interviews from May 2014 to November 2015. Playpen compliance visits were conducted periodically on the second and seventh days and every two months after delivering the playpen. Data were entered using standard data entry formats and analyzed using SPSS software version 23. RESULTS: Parents reported that playpen is a safe place and protects children from drowning and other injuries. During compliance data collection, anchal maa founds that 71.8% of all children were using playpen and 93.7% (of 71.8%) children were playing inside the playpen while mothers were busy with their household chores like cooking, washing dishes and clothes, taking care of their poultry and domestic animals etc. 95.7% parents reported playpen is being used for keeping the child safe. On an average, the children were placed two to six times per day in a playpen. 99.1% of the children who reported using a playpen did not get any injuries (falls, cuts and bruises) while using the playpen. Satisfaction level with the playpen intervention among mothers was 90.5%. Some respondents suggested improving the playpen utilization by providing toys, adding wheels for ease of mobility, and increasing the height. CONCLUSION: The playpens were found to be well accepted and utilized for the children, especially when mothers were busy with their household chores.